Rock'n'Roll

Rock'n'Roll is a new Tom Stoppard/Trevor Nunn collaboration I saw last night and have been pleasantly musing on since. Rock'n'Roll is probably not a great title, it's certainly not about Rock'n'Roll, although it certainly plays a huge role, indeed each scene transition is accompanied by a song from the era*, while the artists behind the song are projected onto the stage curtain.

Okay, so maybe it is about Rock'n'Roll, but it's about a lot of other things, as well- it's quite complex, as I heard a fellow theatre-goer say to another during the half-time break. What the play is more specifically about is the relationship between a Czechoslovakian man (Jan, played by Rufus Sewell) and three generations of the Morrows, a family living in Cambridge under the patriarch Max (played by an awesome Brian Cox). Max and his wife Eleanor (Sinead Cusack) and daughter Esme are all tied to Max's house in Cambridge, where he lectures others on his faith in Communism, a theory he believes is perfect in theory, humans just need to put it into practice correctly.

Jan on the other hand spends most of the play in Prague, where his faith is in rock'n'roll, while he watches communism devolve his government into an oppressive regime, cracking down on his beloved Plastic People of the Universe. Max's theory vs' Jan's experience. Some of the most crackling scenes are when Jan visits Max or vice versa, when Max continues to dogedly believe in his theory (indeed, he makes a fairly convincing argument for it), despite the obvious evidence that it's simply not working.

The play continues to focus on the idea of theory vs. practice, in all manner of systems. While Max argues passionately for communism he also posits that the human brain is simply a biological machine, something Eleanor does not want to hear as she is slowly being taken apart by cancer, wants desperately to believe in something more. I actually found these scenes quite tough to get through, as my own mum has also been through similar trials recently. Each scene jumps forward several years, so it's not much of a spoiler to say that by the second act, Eleanor has passed on. In an interesting generational twist, Sinead Cusack then takes on the role of Eleanor's daughter Esme, and the actress who played Esme in the first act switches roles to play Emily, Esme's daughter. (Not entirely sure why the male actors were spared this jump, possibly because their characters simply refused to move on?) In any case, it's a little odd to see Brian Cox interacting with the same actress who had been playing his wife, now playing his daughter.

While the first act revolved around Jan's return to Prague from Cambridge (where he studied under Max), the second is about his return to Cambridge, where the various plot threads culminate in a barnstorming (and ultimately quite hilarious) dinner sequence complete with smashed glasses, brandished knives and Syd Barrett being used to beat a wicked stepmother. "But it was all going so well..." Max deadpans.

The production values are excellent, a revolving stage making the action-jumps from Prague to Cambridge clean and interesting- at one point even employing a 'split-screen' effect where action in both cities takes place simultaneously. Sewell speaks in and English accent when he is speaking in Prague, but then switches to a Czech accent when he is in England, to highlight how others hear him when he is in their space. In Prague Jan is boisterous, verbose and music-obsessed; in England he is quiet and overly polite. Speaking of verbosity, it's written at a cracking pace- there are more ideas in one burst of dialogue than a lot of plays have in entirety.

Great production that is running to the end of September so I'd recommend you check it out.**

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